Why Go to Church?

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come before him. Worship the Lord in holy splendor (1 Chr. 16:29).

First of all, “why go to church” is a bad title.  It should be “why worship together,” but the average person doesn’t use that language.  The average person talks about going to church (or not going to church), and so that is what I will use here.

            I once invited a friend to come to worship, and she responded, “I don’t need to go to church to be a good person.”  A recent article by John Longhurst in the Winnipeg Free Press (Jan. 4) included a similar sentiment among millennials.  The majority think that you don’t need to believe in God in order to be moral.  Hence, they see no reason to go to church.  My question, however, is this: Since when do you go to church in order to be a good person?

            Now, don’t get me wrong.  People who believe in Jesus do live in a certain way.  Jesus summarized it like this: Love God and love one another.  And so, one would think that those who go to church regularly would also live in the way of love.  However, it seems to me that there are a number of other reasons to go to church, and I’d like to explore some of them here.

            For one thing, you might go to church to feed your spirit.  Just as the body needs food and drink and the mind needs stimulation, so the spirit needs regular nurturing in order to thrive.  Your car doesn’t run very well on empty, and your spirit doesn’t either.  We all need a regular “fill up” from the Spirit of God.

            At the same time, going to church has to do with strengthening our relationship with God.  Just as you might spend time at a friend’s house because you enjoy being together, spending time in God’s house helps keep us in a good and right relationship with God.  Of course, you might be thinking that you can relate to God just fine on your own.  However, one of the things that Jesus showed us is that our relationship with God and our relationships with others are intimately connected.

            Part of the reason that we are called into community (or into communion, if you will) is that loving God involves loving the people who are part of God’s family.  And so, even though there might be people at church that we don’t particularly like or get along with, part of our growth into the people that God has created us to be involves learning to love them.

            While that might sound like hard work, growth in our faith and in our relationship with God is never easy.  In fact, for some people, they might need to go to church in order to learn how to say “no.”  Some believe that they need to say yes to everything that is asked of them, yet not even Jesus did that.  It is true that sometimes God is calling us to do something or to learn something new, but not every request falls into that category.  One of the things that we learn along the way is called discernment – figuring out what comes from God and what does not.

            This leads into another reason to go to church: hearing God’s Word.  God speaks to us and teaches us in many different ways.  It can be through a sermon or prayer, through music or Scripture, through the sacraments or through brothers and sisters in Christ who are open to the Spirit.  Also, just as the Spirit of God sometimes speaks to us through music, we get to sing to God when we go to church.

            Singing, regardless of our musical ability, can change our mood and lift our spirits.  Singing also relieves stress and exercises our lungs.  We get to know God better through the words that we sing, and sometimes God even speaks to us through those same songs.

            Finally, we might go to church in order to give thanks and praise to God.  God provides us with many things every day – even when we don’t realize it.  God has also come among us in Jesus, who not only shares our joys and sorrows, but opens the way to God and to eternal life.  What better reason is there to thank and to praise and to worship?

                        In Christ,

                        Pastor Lynne Hutchison